Series Loss Has Silver Lining

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There was a lot that went wrong over the weekend for the Texas Rangers, who saw their season-long losing skid go to four games before winning Sunday's series finale 7-3 over the rival Los Angeles Angels.

There were defensive miscues, overall brain dead moments, and an absent offense in key situations on Friday and Saturday as two solid starting pitching performances were unceremoniously spoiled for Colby Lewis and Yu Darvish. But there's some sliver lining in all of that as Matt Harrison's start on Sunday capped off a run of three straight very good starts for Rangers pitchers.

Colby Lewis started things on Friday when he went 6 2/3 innings, allowing two earned runs (four runs total) with five strikeouts and one walk. His start ended on a sour note when he hit an Angels batter on an 0-2 pitch before being removed, a runner that eventually scored.

On Saturday, Yu Darvish went 6 1/3 innings, giving up two earned runs (three runs total) with seven strikeouts, leaving after an error and looking awfully unhappy with his teammates after the terrible defensive night (that's a good thing, folks).

On Sunday, Harrison stopped the bleeding, going 6 2/3 innings while giving up three earned runs and throwing just 85 pitches. After four innings, Harrison hadn't reached 40 pitches yet while his counterpart, Dan Haren, was nearing 100.

The best thing about the weekend pitching performances? All three starters took no-hitters (or perfect games) into the fourth inning showing what kind of zone the three seemed to be in.